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Technically, it is distillation but these guys love to use “freeze distillation” a lot. You basically freeze the beer (in their case, in an ice cream warehouse) after it ferments and scoop out the water ice. Commercially, I think Sam Adams holds the record for non-distilled beer with their Utopias at 28%.

This is freeze-separated up to 55% rather than distilled, gives a very different character to a distilled drink. Unfortunately, I missed the boat on “The End of History”, but I’ve had a couple of bottles of their other silly-strength beer (“Tactical Nuclear Penguin” and “Sink The Bismark!”) which are rather lovely and certainly an interesting experience!

The rest of their beers are well worth a look in, they also own a chunk of Anchor Brewery in San Francisco.

I’ve had some of Brewdog’s 40% beer, and that tasted strange but still beery. As for the process, I seem to recall it isn’t distillation but some sort of freezing to reduce the water content (I’m going by half-remembered impressions from an occasion one of whose features was drinking a 40% beer, so don’t take my word for it!)

I read about this when it was first announced. As I recall, you can call freeze-distilled grain-mash alcohol ‘beer’ and sell it if you have a commercial brewer’s license in Europe but not in the US. If you wanted to make it here, you’d need a distiller’s license.

As mentioned by several people, this beer is freeze distilled. I think that BrewDog does these ultra-high strength beers just to get themselves some publicity. They do make a line of more conventional beers some of which are actually quite good.

As an aside, the strongest beer that has been created by fermentation alone is probably still Sam Adams Utopias (at 27 percent ABV).

As others have noted, The End of History is from last year (the article you linked is from 2010-07-23) so not exactly new.

Does it even count as a beer? Does it taste like beer?

I have not had the occasion to taste The End (price a little to high for my purse), but I *have* tasted their 32% “Tactical Nuclear Penguin”.

It’s good and it does taste of beer (somewhere between beer and aged spirits really), although it’s not drunk like a beer (and the 33cl bottles come with a stopper so you can drink it over a few days). I found 4 or 5 people for just one of these to be more than sufficient.

As an aside, the strongest beer that has been created by fermentation alone is probably still Sam Adams Utopias (at 27 percent ABV).

I had to look this up; I’ve brewed for years and never heard of any fermentation going to that kind of strength. They keep it in casks for at least 10 years, I expect that it’s the casking that brings the ABV up. If the environment is dry enough it should concentrate the alcohol.

That’s the problem that some of the US craft brewers ran into: too high an alcohol content and it’s no longer considered “beer”. “Beer” in th US is generally below 5% and 5-9% is “malt liquor”, but the specific laws vary state-by-state*. It’s not unusual to see a craft beer labelled at 9% ABV, but actually have a much higher ABV.

I’ve got some of their 32% tactical nuclear penguin, which was their first freeze-distilled beer. It’s interesting, but tastes more like some mutant fortified wine than any beer I’ve had. It was the strongest beer in the world until the German-scot arms race began. Now ABV is over 60% I believe.

Ok, you knowledgeable pharyngulites… This freeze-distilling, what sort of a history does it have with beers/wines/whiskys? I had only heard of it being used with cider; in fact, I was told it is the “proper” way to make apple jack. Are freeze-distilled beers a recent thing, or just a rare thing? Or have they always been here, and I have just been ignorant?

I’m a homebrewer, so I know a little about yeasts, and what it can do in terms of alcohol.

No, you can’t get 55% ABV without some form of distillation. Yeast dies when there’s too much alcohol in the liquid. I’ve seen specially bread turbo-yeasts that can get to 23%, but I doubt that they can go much higher.

In my opinion, if distillation is involved, it’s no longer beer. This stuff has more in common with whiskey than beer. It will not taste like beer, because the alcohol content is much too high. Strong ales can have a bit of an alcohol ‘bite’ to them, but it’s nothing like the punch 55% will give you.

IM not so HO, brewers who try to get the highest amount of alcohol in their brews as possible have lost sight of what a good beer is. It’s a marketing gimmick that shows a lack of love for the craft, and an undue love of money.

Hops are a fairly recent addition to beer. Before the use of hops other herbs were used to flavor beer, and offset the sweetness of the malt. Each brewer has their own mix of herbs, called ‘gruit’. It is rarely used these days, since hops are pretty much the ideal counterpart to the barley malt in terms of flavor. Hops also act as preservatives, giving the beer a longer shelf-life.

A better distinction between beer and whiskey would be that whiskey is distilled, while beer is fermented.

It had an alcohol content of 55%. Can you even get that without distillation? Does it even count as a beer? Does it taste like beer?

No. They get the high alcohol content by freeze distillation. It’s absolutely illegal to do this at home unless you live in New Zealand.

No. It’s a distilled beverage and might count as a whiskey depending on what went into it.

Probably not. Does brandy taste like wine? Does rum taste like sugar wash? Does everclear taste like unhopped ale? If it’s a hopped beer the stuff is probably nasty. Distillate of hops is bitter and nasty.

I’m not saying I’ve ever done this. It would be illegal without a distiller’s license. But I’ve heard that a lot of the really nasty low freezing temperature stuff in fermented beverages like fusel oils gets concentrated along with the alcohol when you freeze distill. It’s not like heat or vacuum distillation where you can draw off the (really nasty) heads, keep the alcohol-rich hearts and leave the (still very nasty) tails behind.

I had to look this up; I’ve brewed for years and never heard of any fermentation going to that kind of strength. They keep it in casks for at least 10 years, I expect that it’s the casking that brings the ABV up. If the environment is dry enough it should concentrate the alcohol.

I think it has more to do with the yeast they are using. Some strains of yeast have a higher tolerance to alcohol than others, and within highly alcohol resistant yeast you will have variation W.R.T. alcohol tolerance. If you ferment strong beers and then reculture the yeast that is still active at the end of the fermentation (as opposed to the yeast that has gone dormant, and fallen to the bottom of the fermenter) you can select and propagate the individuals with the highest tolerance to alcohol. From what I’ve read Sam Adams has been brewing successively stronger beers using this technique, and engineering a monsterously alcohol tolerant yeast strain in the process.

There are actually a large number of peers that are cellared in wood casks for extended periods, and I don’t think there is any documentation of that process strengthening the beer.

I first heard of freeze-distillation in Sir Pterry’s Equal Rites (as the method of making apple jack). I know Molson’s started making an “ice beer” twenty or so years ago with this technique, but not to anywhere near the extreme that this has been taken to.

I had only heard of it being used with cider; in fact, I was told it is the “proper” way to make apple jack.

Yeah, applejack was the context in which I’d heard of this technique as well; it was mentioned in passing in a book I read about homebrewing and winemaking.

I’ve been wondering: In the U.S., home distilling — unlike homebrewing and winemaking — is (AFAIK) illegal even in small quantities for personal use… but does feeze-distillation count as distilling for legal purposes? I know I could look it up, but it’s really just casual curiosity, and I thought maybe some of the brewers here had looked into it?

I’ve been wondering: In the U.S., home distilling — unlike homebrewing and winemaking — is (AFAIK) illegal even in small quantities for personal use… but does feeze-distillation count as distilling for legal purposes? I know I could look it up, but it’s really just casual curiosity, and I thought maybe some of the brewers here had looked into it?

Freeze-distillation is absolutely distillation for legal purposes. I had a long talk with the local TTB office a couple years back about this. It doesn’t matter how you do it. Wok in a pot. Vacuum distillation. Pot still. Freeze distillation. If you’re rectifying alcohol without a license you’re breaking the law.

Oh, and what makes beer beer is not the addition of hops, it is the use of grain and yeast.

The addition of hops turns ale into beer. Ale was traditionally brewed without hops (a continental invention) When hops were introduced into Britain in the 1400’s they adopted the continental name ‘beer’ for hopped ale

freeze ‘distillation’ is used in some Budweiser products. I have no idea what they are called in the US but they contain grain and hops which is the only reason they can be sold as beer in the UK – they taste awful.
As for the the beer/ale argument beer was brewed in the UK before Hops arrived here – the name stems from its main non water ingredient – barley.
The words ale and beer were synonymous until hops arrived in the UK after which fights broke out over the name giving beer and ale a bad reputation that continues to this day.

The addition of hops turns ale into beer. Ale was traditionally brewed without hops (a continental invention) When hops were introduced into Britain in the 1400′s they adopted the continental name ‘beer’ for hopped ale

So what makes beer ‘beer’ is indeed the hops.

No, Ale can have hops in it. Ale just indicates the method of fermentation. All ales are beer, but not all beers are ale since there other types of beer.

Agree with Matt Penfold. These days, ‘ale’ is a type of beer that’s brewed at relatively warm temperatures with a bottom-fermenting brewer’s yeast, as opposed to other types of beer like lagers, stouts/porters, or lambics.
Apparently the hops/no hops usage was original, however, ‘cording to ‘kipedia:

The term “ale” was initially used to describe a drink brewed without hops, unlike “beer”[3]. It has often now come to mean a bitter-tasting barley beverage fermented at room temperature. In some British usage, however, in homage to the original distinction, it is not now used except in compounds (such as “pale ale” (see below)) or as “real ale”, a term adopted in opposition to the pressurised beers developed by industrial brewers in the 1960s, and used of a warm-fermented unpasteurised beer served from the cask (though not stout or porter).

There are actually a large number of peers that are cellared in wood casks for extended periods, and I don’t think there is any documentation of that process strengthening the beer.

You know, I’ve heard it many times, and I can find references to it online, but I don’t have access to any of the relevant journals to check what exactly the claims are. Not surprisingly, my work doesn’t have a subscription to the American Journal of Enology and Viticulture…

However, if you’ll accept hearsay, I can point to an article like this on humidifiers for cellars, which makes the same sort of claim I’ve read numerous times – that the relative evaporation of water and ethanol depends on the environment, particularly the humidity.

I think it has more to do with the yeast they are using. Some strains of yeast have a higher tolerance to alcohol than others, and within highly alcohol resistant yeast you will have variation W.R.T. alcohol tolerance. If you ferment strong beers and then reculture the yeast that is still active at the end of the fermentation (as opposed to the yeast that has gone dormant, and fallen to the bottom of the fermenter) you can select and propagate the individuals with the highest tolerance to alcohol. From what I’ve read Sam Adams has been brewing successively stronger beers using this technique, and engineering a monsterously alcohol tolerant yeast strain in the process.

Evolution is awesome :) I suppose it could be that the whole thing is done this way, though that seems really high. It would certainly work up to some limit.

Yeast cannot go above about 20% ABV. All higher levels are produced by fortification. (I’m not saying no yeast can tolerate higher levels, I don’t know about that for sure; but the brewing yeasts of all sorts (the ones that taste good) can’t tolerate above about 20%.)

The only ones going above about 15% are the ones used in making Sherry.

The highest I know of in beer is Samichlaus at 14% ABV (and remarkably good-tasting for something with that level of esters, long-chain sugars, and alcohol. Just don’t get drunk on it. Ooh, the hangover. And many intestinal tracts do not like an overload of long-chain sugars …)

These Scottish beers are made by freezing and removing the ice to concentrate the alcohol (and flavors I suppose). I doubt they taste very good. It’s tricky to make high ABV beers that are actually fun to drink. Most require a lot of aging to mellow them out.

Based on my readings in beer history, beer came way before hops were ever used in it and the beer/ale top-fermenting/bottom-fermenting distinction is mainly just semantics.

There are beer styles to be sure. And all beers used to use locally native yeasts (and many (all?) of the greatest beers still do. The yeasts are selected by the processing in the brewery. They become localized in the beer and brewery.)

These are just words in English, recently coined or adopted. And the Englestanis did not invent these beer styles/categories. They predate modern English and were local works from local ingredients and conditions. I’m guessing the Angles and the Saxons brought both ale and beer with them, along with the drinks themselves.

Anheuser-Busch once sent samples to an independent lab because the beer had less taste than usual. It wasn’t the yeast. It wasn’t the hops, the water, the barley or the rice. In-house experts couldn’t figure out what was going on.

Brewdog, is in my opinion. a marketing company that occasionally manages to produce a drinkable beer e.g. their Punk IPA. There are far more interesting small breweries in Scotland who are genuinely interested in producing interesting brews.